The paper investigates the textual effects of an argumentative poem entitled Dinner with the Cannibal on its readers in order to see whether or not there is uniformity in their reaction. The focus of the analysis lies on the roles played by genre and metaphor in determining the readers’ interpretation. It is argued that readers are, on the one hand, influenced by traditional literary interpretive approaches, but above all by the power of metaphor, which provides a cognitive link between text producer and reader, thus enabling a controlled and uniform interpretation of the poem’s argumentative structure. It is concluded that the interplay of genre and metaphor are grounded in an overall ideological context.